If you want to understand how top performers think...

Clients and Experience

Knowledge Harvesting has been implemented across a variety of industries, geographies companies and cultures. We have worked with top performers in many different disciplines and documented many different types of processes. Our “sweet spot” is uncovering deep hidden insights, “gut feel”, and intuitive knowledge that is typically used in solving difficult or unpredictable problems.

Clients include:

Abbott Laboratories

American Society for Quality

American Society of Mechanical Engineers

Apache Corporation

Arthur Andersen

BP Amoco

Buckman Laboratories

Centre Européen pour le Développement de la Formation Professionnelle

CheckFree Corporation – Fiserve, Inc.

Chevron Corporation

Clarica Life Insurance Company

F. Hoffman La Roche

Florida Department of Education

Georgia-Pacific Corporation

Halliburton Energy Services

Husky Injection Molding Systems

INSEAD Centre for Advanced Learning Technologies

Institute for Electronics & Electrical Engineers

Intel Corporation

Lyondell Basell Chemical Company

Pennzoil-Quaker State Company

PhaseOne Corporation

Potomac Institute for Policy Studies

PricewaterhouseCoopers

Ramius Corporation

SAIC Strategies Group

S.C. Johnson & Son, Inc.

Steelcase Inc.

The Babcock & Wilcox Company

The Dow Chemical Company

University of Alabama at Birmingham

Testimonials:

From Experts and Top Performers:

Initially, I was apprehensive. I did not know where we were going. I did not see much value. As Larry (consultant) asked questions about my work, I became more explicitly aware of all that I actually do around here! I don’t give myself credit for many of these activities. More and more information was documented. Larry drew a picture of the job which revealed the interfaces with so many people. There are tentacles all over. Before I worked with Larry, I struggled with the idea of developing a successor. Now, it’s different. Larry helped and provided a good foundation for me and my successor. In regard to project logistics, Larry is not intrusive. He worked around my schedule. It was helpful to get to know Larry a bit (so that trust developed.) The project results are not all-inclusive. From time-to-time, there are specific things that arise that have not been documented. Overall, I’m impressed. I cannot say anything negative at all. I’m anxious to see it in use by . I have no doubt that this will happen.

When we started, I thought: I really don’t know why you’d want to document this. As we got into the process, I realized that I did not know how I made complex decisions. Now that we are finished, I will use this tool (project deliverable – systematized approach) myself!

In my entire career, I have never experienced this kind of conversation before. What emerged during Knowledge Harvesting was intuitively obvious, but I had never verbalized it before. The Knowledge Harvesting approach helped me to think about how I think.

There is a lot of good information here and I am amazed at the small details you picked up on.

When we started the Knowledge Harvesting project, I thought: My job is different. It is not a technical role like some of the other Knowledge Harvesting projects that you have done (where the contributor is a technical expert.) Your process will not work for me. As we progressed during the first day of discussion, the value of Knowledge Harvesting became apparent. By the second day, I rated Knowledge Harvesting an “A+.” Until the Knowledge Harvesting project, we never took the time to sit down and talk about the job’s details. Upon reflection, the Knowledge Harvesting project provided me with needed, focused discussions on the essential information about the role. I would not have been able to capture this much valuable information on my own. The scheduled time for the project discussions provided us with needed time to focus and discuss the job. Before the project, we were simply addressing the team’s issues in an ad hoc manner (as each crisis arose.)

The deliverable is a very comprehensive and well thought out profile of the role. It’s clear to me that there was a lot of time and effort put into this and the results are impressive. The Knowledge Harvesting process used to collect this information clearly works.

I’m jealous of how they learn the process today! Over several years, I had to figure it out through trial and error. The Knowledge Harvesting process laid it all out.

When we started, I was a bit apprehensive because I am task-oriented was not really sure what the outcome would be. After I saw the deliverables from another project, it helped me envision the potential. Now, looking back, I appreciate the fact that we did not limit ourselves to a pre-determined deliverable. As more and more guidance was captured, we were able figure out the best results. One of the benefits of the project was that we created an integrated view. The guidance tells you not only what you need to do, but it pulls everything else together. An integrated view is important because, if you miss one of the dimensions, then you do not fully understand the work. When a new person begins working, it’s difficult to figure out who to collaborate with. We addressed this by creating a ‘yellow pages’ which explains the contacts and relevant activities. Larry (consultant) knew nothing about this role, but was able to draw out more and more information as well as make helpful suggestions about how the information should be organized. If you had asked me to write it all down, it would not have happened. The structure and project management aspects kept us focused and accountable. When we started, we had lots of tools and historical information, but there was no information about sources of information, how to use the tool, etc. If I had something like this, it would take much-less time to become competent.

From Sponsors:

If we had done this project ourselves, we might have captured most of the procedural information, but we would have missed the conditional and social aspects of the work. When a new person has a question, it will usually be narrowly-focused. With this resource, they can step back and see the big picture. You don’t know what you don’t know! This project made it obvious what you should know. It documents so many of the details of the job. We expected the project to capture the thought process and it did. It was a good idea to keep it generic where we could, such as naming the roles and not citing the proper names.

This resource fits our needs because we have contract people in and out. We can use the information to help with getting them on board. We don’t have any other job that is described in such detail.

Our division didn’t need a consultant that only works with experts a few times a year. I insisted that we engage a firm who works with experts every day.

KHi people are among the twenty or so individuals in the world who really understand how to transfer knowledge. Their approach allows learning at the speed of change.

Knowledge Harvesting is significantly more efficient than a team of knowledge engineers, or any other methodology I know about.

Knowledge Harvesting has one of the first turnkey solutions for making tacit knowledge explicit.

Knowledge Harvesting Inc. has made a profound discovery. With the Knowledge Schema, it is possible to lay the foundation for the science of knowledge.

Other Participants:

I wasn’t exactly sure about how knowledge transfer might go. Sometimes I may not really know the best questions to ask. What I found was that Larry methodically went through the tasks, going deeper and deeper, asking the right questions to draw out <expert’s> knowledge. It went well. I was also pleased that Larry asked about me about my preferences and listened to find out my needs. The tools are valuable and the templates are great. Obviously, it needs to be applied. It definitely speeds up learning. In the future, there really is not anything that seems like it can be improved about the Knowledge Harvesting process.

Moving forward, I feel confident that I can now handle knowledge transfer on my own. I must thank you for the comprehensive training I received from your organization. Without your assistance and willingness to support and share your knowledge, I would not have gained the experience and confidence to conduct knowledge harvesting sessions.

I’m amazed by the techniques and how they have transformed how I capture detailed business processes.